Tag: game mechanics

thephilosophicalsheep asks:

All right; so in gen 6, gamefreak made obscure competitive phenomena like EVs and egg moves more accessible to younger players with additions such as super training and the DexNav. Now what I want them to do is encourage their use by allowing NPCs the same benefits. Rarely in the pokemon games do you even see in-game trainers using ITEMS. That needs to change. I want to see Sun and Moon trainers with EV-trained, egg-moved, battle-equipped mons. That’ll better prepare kids for competitive, no?

Mmm… well, sort of?  I mean, we already have that in, for example, the Battle Maison; facilities like that have used all of those things for ages.  And to be honest I’m kind of happy with that, as a step up in difficulty from what we see during the story portion of the games.  I don’t want to throw all of this $#!t at you from the start; that’s just bloody overwhelming.  And I think the increase in transparency that comes from Super Training is much more important to introducing the EV system than having NPCs with EV-trained Pokémon would be; you can’t see EVs in battle, so ultimately that just winds up as being “everything is now harder for reasons you don’t fully understand; hahahahaha!”  The other thing there is that EV spreads for competitive movesets are often based on calculations around which Pokémon you can take down in X number of hits and which Pokémon can take you down in X number of hits, all assuming equal level and heavily informed by the current metagame, and that’s just not something that’s ever going to have any place in single player.

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Anonymous asks:

What would you do to fix darmanitan’s zen mode ability in a way that’s thematically appropriate?

Hmm. Well, the problems with Zen Mode as I see it are:

1) you’re forced to train one Pokémon to fill two roles, and wind up splitting EVs, nature and move sets so you get this messy hybrid (I think Game Freak did anticipate this and tried to deal with it by giving the two forms extremely high base stats in the areas they specialise in – the problem is you’re better off just piling EVs and a nature bonus on top of the high stats enjoyed by the basic form and pushing his attack into the goddamn stratosphere), and 2) Zen Darmanitan is a tank who inherently starts with less than 50% health, which compromises his usefulness. Well, and 3) the alternative, Sheer Force, is such a hugely powerful ability for a Pokémon with a stat spread as extremely specialised towards physical damage as Darmanitan’s, but there’s not much we can do about that.

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Anonymous asks:

What exactly is “special defense”?

I don’t think it’s necessarily anything, really.  I don’t think any of the stats are anything.  Think about speed, for instance.  Rapidash has a base speed of 105, and that’s clearly because she runs really fast, but then, Kadabra also has a base speed of 105 and it’s equally clear that this does not mean Kadabra can run as fast as Rapidash.  In Kadabra’s case it represents something more like reaction time.  So really speed is “anything that enables a Pokémon to gain a tactical advantage which can be represented by moving first.”

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Anonymous asks:

Hi dear pokemaniacal, what do you think about a new “Cosmic” type added to the game? A type that would´t bother much the current metagame, given to very little pokemon in form of Megas to don´t mess too with the current types (like Solrock/Lunatone, Clefable, Sigilyph, Deoxis and the likes or few forgotten ones as Xatu) or just only to the new legendaries to add more mysticism and exclusivity to them. Anyway, what pokemon would you give this type? Match-ups? Would this type have right to exist?

I pretty much have to refer you to this recent question and answer, which is kinda my default reply to anything involving adding more types.  I just don’t think it adds anything worthwhile at this point – is the fact that we don’t have a whole type dedicated to Pokémon associated with celestial phenomena really a significant limitation on design?  If we want something we can give to legendary Pokémon to make them more powerful, well, sure – we’ve pretty much thrown game balance out the window with them long ago anyway, and there are good aesthetic reasons for wanting them to stand head-and-shoulders above other Pokémon.  But personally I’d rather overhaul the way we interact with legendary Pokémon in the games completely.

Anonymous asks:

Suppose clear body, white smoke and flower veil also protected from self-inflicted stat loss. Thus, torkoal and heatmor would suck a bit less thanks to lack of overheat recoil, florges would be useful in doubles, and regirock migbt get some use out of superpower. My main worry is metagross, who’s already a solid pokemon and loves using hammer arm. Would that be too broken?

You know, I think we’re probably fine there?  Like, if there is any doubt about Metagross, then just apply the change only to White Smoke.  I don’t care if they have Overheat without recoil; Heatmor and Torkoal are still not going to dominate anything any time soon.  And even Metagross… well, Hammer Arm isn’t really its primary attack, and it also has the options of Bullet Punch and Agility anyway.  Like, it’s a buff to a Pokémon who probably doesn’t need it, but I honestly don’t think it’s a huge one?  Sure as hell pales in comparison to giving Metagross a Mega Evolution, and we were apparently fine with that.

Anonymous asks:

Remember when 100 base attack was “high”? Gamefreak just keeps giving new pokemon more and more insane stats, causing older pokemon to pale in comparison.

…no?  I mean, in generation I, Rhydon had 130 base attack, and Alakazam had 135 base special.  And sure, there are Pokémon that top that now, but when you cut out legendary and mega-evolved Pokémon (who are, y’know, supposed to make others pale in comparison) most of them are, like… not actually very good?  Like, Haxorus is fine, but I’d still rather take Garchomp or Dragonite.  Chandelure is good, but hardly dominating.  And when you look at the defensive stats, well, pretty consistently the best Pokémon are the well-rounded ones, not the ones who have one stat absurdly inflated – Avalugg is garbage, Florges and Goodra are fine but hardly the strongest around, and… well, Shuckle.  Just… Shuckle.  

So… I disagree with all parts of this statement.

Godzillakiryu91 asks:

What seven would that be, and what would decide where an existing Pokemon would get placed?

I knew someone would ask that next.

To be honest it’s not even so much a revision of the current type chart as throwing it out altogether and starting from scratch.  Sort of a “can I just do this completely differently?” thought experiment, which probably has to go along with massive changes to how we do status effects, PP, accuracy, and several other things (including doing away with physical/special).  Pokémon don’t even have types at all, they just have weaknesses and resistances to attack types (of which attacks can have one, two, or even none), and those are assigned case-by-case.  

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vikingboybilly asks:

The canned idea of a BIRD type is starting to grow on me. It would have been GameFreak’s way of differentiating the wind element from all the NORMAL birds in the game, and they wouldn’t have had the NORMAL type on them. This also got me thinking that maybe FISH types would be cool to round out the BIRD and BUG types. Some other ideas: EARTH, SNOW, WOOD, FOSSIL, MAGIC, MUSIC, and of course, LIGHT. I’ve also seen COSMIC on youtube. Feel free to praise or criticize any of my choices.

Well, that’s the thing, I have more of an inclination (unpopular, I think, in the Pokémon community) to reduce the type chart down rather than add more to it.  So I would reject all of those, as well as probably several of the existing types, including Ground, Bug, Flying and Dragon.  I recently thought through this, for no particular reason, and I think you could reasonably cut it down to as few as seven.  So yeah.  I think we’re just coming at this whole thing from opposite directions entirely.

EDIT: The inevitable follow-up question.

vikingboybilly asks:

Okay, listen to this: What if, instead of breeding eggs, pokemon trained each other by playing at the day care, giving their IVs, egg moves, or abilities to the other pokemon, and your pokemon can reach it’s full potential by learning and growing from the other pokemon at the day care instead of ridiculous egg breeding chains? This could be controlled with the power items and everstones and such, but it might work a little differenty (The power bracer’d pokemon get the attack IV from the other

You know, I think I like that, or something along those lines anyway.  I talked a bit in one of these old things about expanding the complexity and interactivity of Pokémon storage, placing a bit more emphasis on what your Pokémon are getting up to when they’re not actually with you, and this kind of thing might play into that kind of aim really well.  I think it reinforces the sense you get of Pokémon as individuals if they help each other to learn and grow, rather than just keeping it as the sole responsibility of the trainer.  There’s a lot of scope there for, say, the combinations of Pokémon’s natures having different effects on each other, or for abilities that (in addition to their battle effects) alter the way Pokémon can interact with each other in the day care.  Maybe Pokémon that have trained together will be more effective in double or triple battles together?  Lots of different directions you could take it.